A couple weeks ago I embarked on a very special journey with our 18-year-old foster daughter who has been a beloved member of our family since she was an awkward and insecure 11-year-old. She has now graduated high school, runs her own small business with a friend, works part-time in our ministry teaching classes to a group of preteens with learning disabilities and is waist-deep in the admission process to enter a local university. 

Of all the 14 youth who have called our house “home” over the past 8+ years, my dad jokes that he does not ever worry about this particular daughter of ours. She’s got her head screwed on straight, is kind-hearted and often seems older than her years. After being tossed about by many devastating storms as a child, the Lord has miraculously given back to her the years that were lost and has granted her exceeding levels of wisdom, financial savvy, loyalty and faith. 

She and I stood in line a couple Fridays ago, large hiking backpacks strapped to our backs and tickets in hand, as we waited to board the ferry that would take us out to one of Honduras’ islands for the weekend. I would be accompanying her to meet her biological father for the first time in her life. (He lives on the island and works as a fisherman.) Emotions were high, and I secretly hoped that this elusive man who had been the epitome of an absentee father would not crush our beautiful daughter’s heart to pieces. I was afraid her expectations were too high, and my husband and I had carefully (and perhaps unsuccessfully) tried to prepare her for this wild-card weekend experience.

As we were in the large commercial ferry’s waiting area, dozens of other passengers from around the world were likewise awaiting the boat that would transport them to Caribbean island paradise. We saw people of all shapes, sizes and colors, and honestly it was as much enthralling as it was overwhelming. Mind you, I have not left Honduran soil in five years’ time, and throughout this time I have been largely confined to our remote ranch in a rural part of Honduras that receives little to no international traffic. We basically see our same rural, materially poor neighbors day in and day out, and this has been my daughter’s experience not for the past five years but for the majority of her short lifetime. (In short, we are moderately sheltered from many of the “modern” plagues that are ravishing wealthier and more developed nations.)

Now, I must confess that this reflection is not in essence about our weekend spent getting to know our foster daughter’s biological father. It is rather about a spiritual discipline I’m learning to develop that is highly applicable and urgently necessary across the globe in today’s worldwhere too often what is wrong is considered right, and what is right is considered wrong.

So, I literally felt like we had been transported to another country (or perhaps another planet!) as we sat quietly waiting to board the ferry when a certain man caught my eye.

He was stocky and broad-shouldered as any man is, but he was dressed extravagantly as a woman and had long, womanly hair that was perfectly styled. He wore makeup and employed explicitly feminine gestures. I found myself subtly studying him and felt genuinely sad for him in my heart. 

Throughout this past decade that I’ve lived in Honduras with very little “worldly” exposure I knew the world had changed much, and I oftentimes find myself reading up on these things online in order to remain well-informed and to know how to pray accordingly.

But this time I was not reading an article online about the transgender tidal wave or the far-reaching effects of the “sexual revolution”; I was witnessing it in person a few yards away, a real man – a real soul – who has been so deceived and swept up by this cultural phenomenon that he has tried to shed his very masculine identity (as God created him) in favor of a pseudo personality that he believes fits him better.

I glanced over at my daughter as she sat quietly, her hands in her lap and her gaze contentedly far off in some distant place in front of her, no doubt lost in her own thoughts as she considered the pending ramifications of meeting her biological father within a few hours’ time. 

Heart heavy, I began to pray in silence for the transgendered man. And I mean, really pray.

A short time later, then aboard the ferry, a woman who appeared to be lesbian or transgendered was seated a few arms’ lengths from us as the boat bobbed up and down on the ocean waves. My daughter pulled the hood of her sweater down over her eyes and tried to uncomfortably curl up in a ball on the ferry’s seat near me as she fought seasickness. Seeing as I generally cannot sleep (or even let down my guard) in public spaces, I sat there wide awake and glanced again at the woman seated near us, and I began to pray silently for her with my eyes wide open. 

At one point I got up during the hour-and-forty-five-minute ferry ride and went nearly sliding across the aisle in order to go buy snacks. I was not sea-sick at all; I was hungry! As I clung to a rung on the ferry’s wall, I came across the transgendered man that I had seen and prayed for in the waiting area. With a heavy heart, I returned to my seat several minutes later (snacks in hand) and resumed my silent prayer for both of these people, eyes wide open.

How often do we lose time waiting mindlessly in the doctor’s office, standing in line at the bank, sitting idly on airplanes or waiting impatiently for meetings to commence? How often has the Lord put people in our midst who need Him – who desperately need prayer – but we haven’t had the self-discipline or the faithful presence of mind to truly pray for these people?

What if we as Christians made the commitment to pray – truly pray – for these people whom we come across in our workplaces, neighborhoods and in daily newsreels? What if we as God’s people learned to pray with our eyes wide open?

Upon arriving on the island – within moments of meeting our precious girl’s biological father with all the roller coaster of emotions in tow – I saw yet another transgendered man exiting the ferry, this one with a sparkling crown in his hands. 

Another earnest prayer, eyes wide open.

Over the weekend, my precious daughter and I not only met her biological father and spent many memorable moments with him in Caribbean paradise, but we also witnessed many extravagant, shameless displays of humanity’s descent into depravity. Everything that I had been reading on reputable internet sources over the past several years came alive before our very eyes all around us. My heart broke in a million pieces for these people, but I didn’t let that keep me from turning to the Lord in prayer – right there on the beach, in local restaurants, in the midst of so much human brokenness.

Pray with me. Let us learn to pray with our eyes wide open.